Death of a Salesman

Arthur Miller

Act I (continued)

Act II, page 2

page 1 of 2

Opening scene through scene in Howard’s office

Summary

When Willy awakes the next morning, Biff and Happy have
already left, Biff to see Bill Oliver and Happy to mull over the
“Florida idea” and go to work. Willy, in high spirits with the prospect
of the “Florida idea,” mentions that he would like to get some seeds
and plant a small garden in the yard. Linda, pleased with her husband’s
hopeful mood, points out that there is not enough sun. Willy replies
that they will have to get a house in the country. Linda reminds
Willy to ask his boss, Howard, for a non-traveling job as well as
an advance to pay the insurance premium. They have one last payment
on both the refrigerator and the house, and they have just finished
paying for the car. Linda informs Willy that Biff and Happy
want to take him to dinner at Frank’s Chop House at six o’clock.
As Willy departs, moved and excited by his sons’ dinner invitation,
he notices a stocking that Linda is mending and, guilt-ridden with
the latent memory of his adultery with The Woman, admonishes her
to throw the stocking away.

Willy timidly enters Howard’s office. Howard is playing
with a wire recorder he has just purchased for dictation. He plays
the recorded voices of his family: his cloyingly enthusiastic children
(a whistling daughter and a son who recites the state capitals in
alphabetical order) and his shy wife. As Willy tries to express
admiration, Howard repeatedly shushes him. Willy asks for a non-traveling
job at $65 a week. Howard replies that there is no opening available.
He looks for his lighter. Willy finds it and hands it to him, unconsciously ignoring,
in his nervous and pathetically humble distraction, his own advice
never to handle or tend to objects in a superior’s office, since
that is the responsibility of “office boys.” Willy keeps lowering his
salary request, explaining his financial situation in unusually candid
detail, but Howard remains resistant. Howard keeps calling him “kid”
and assumes a condescending tone despite his younger age and Willy’s
reminders that he helped Howard’s father name him.

Desperate, Willy tries to relate an anecdote about Dave
Singleman, an eighty-four-year-old salesman who phoned his buyers
and made his sales without ever leaving his hotel room. After he
died the noble “death of a salesman” that eludes Willy, hundreds
of salesmen and buyers attended his funeral. Willy reveals that
his acquaintance with this venerable paragon of salesmanship convinced
him to become a salesman himself rather than join his brother, Ben,
on his newly purchased plot of timberland in Alaska. Singleman’s
dignified success and graceful, respected position as an older man
deluded Willy into believing that “selling was the greatest career
a man could want” because of its limitless potential and its honorable
nature. Willy laments the loss of friendship and personality in
the business, and he complains that no one knows him anymore. An
uninterested Howard leaves the office to attend to other people,
and he returns when Willy begins shouting frantically after accidentally
switching on the wire recorder. Eventually, Willy becomes so distraught
that Howard informs him that he does not want Willy to represent
his company anymore. Howard essentially fires Willy, with the vague implication
of reemployment after a period of “rest.” He suggests that Willy
turn to his sons (who he understandably assumes are successful given
Willy’s loud bragging) for financial support, but Willy is horrified
at the thought of depending on his children and reversing the expected
familial roles. He is far too proud to admit defeat, and Howard
must insist repeatedly on the cessation of Willy’s employment before
it sinks in.

Analysis

Biff’s decision to seek a business loan raises Willy’s
spirits, and the way in which Willy expresses his optimism is quite
revealing. The first thing Willy thinks about is planting a garden
in his yard; he then muses to Linda that they should buy a house
in the country, so that he could build guesthouses for Biff and
Happy when they have families of their own. These hopeful plans
seem to illustrate how ill-suited Willy is to his profession, as
it stifles his natural inclinations. Indeed, the competitive, hyper-capitalist
world of sales seems no more appropriate for Willy than for Biff.
Willy seems happiest when he dreams of building things with his
own hands, and when his instincts in this direction surface, he
seems whole again, able to see a glimmer of truth in himself and
his abilities.

Willy’s wistful fantasy of living in the forests of Alaska
strengthens the implication that he chose the wrong profession.
He does not seem to like living in an urban setting. However, his
fascination with the frontier is also intimately connected to his
obsession with the American Dream. In nineteenth-century America,
the concept of the intrepid explorer entering the unknown, uncharted
wilderness and striking gold was deeply imbedded in the national
consciousness. With the postwar surge of consumerism in America,
this “wilderness” became the bustling market of consumer goods,
and the capitalist replaced the pioneer as the American hero. These
new intrepid explorers plunged into the jungle of business transactions
in order to find a niche to exploit. Ben, whose success involved
a literal jungle in Africa, represents one version of the frontier
narrative. Dave Singleman represents another. Willy chose to follow
Singleman’s path, convinced that it was the modern version and future
of the American Dream of success through hard work.

While Willy’s dissatisfaction with his life seems due
in part to choosing a profession that conflicts with his interests,
it seems also due in part to comparing all aspects, professional
and private alike, of his own life to those of a mythic standard.
He fails to realize that Ben’s wealth is the result of a blind stroke
of luck rather than a long-deserved reward for hard work and personal
merit. Similarly, Willy misses the tragic aspect of Singleman’s
story of success—that Singleman was still working at the age of
eighty-four and died on the job. Mourning for him was limited to
the sphere of salesmen and train passengers who happened to be there
at his death—the ephemeral world of transience, travel, and money,
as opposed to the meaningful realm of loved ones.